“Is now a good time to talk…”
It has been a rollercoaster of a week but I am feeling relieved to be having this tumor removed tomorrow!
Monday at 4:55pm I got a call from my genetic counselor regarding the results we had been waiting on. She started the call by asking "is now a good time to talk", which in my experience recently means it's not great. This was a good and bad news call, good I do NOT have the BRCA gene mutation, bad I have a gene mutation called ATM. While not as high risk as the BRCA gene to cause a reoccurrence or an occurrence in the other breast.... it's unclear exactly what the risk is. The ATM gene mutation is rare and we know is associated with breast cancer but there really isn't much data on it to base decisions off of. I am lucky enough to have a lovely friend who happens to be a genetic counselor. While oncology isn't her specialty she very graciously agreed to look over my results and talk with me so I didn't have to wait since it was after 5pm at this point. She certainly put my mind at ease enough that I was able to get some sleep and had some fabulous questions to ask the genetic counselor who had ordered my blood test as well as my surgeon.
After a call with my genetic counselor on Tuesday and then a call with my surgeon today myself and my team feel confident that continuing with our original course of action is the right decision. I check in tomorrow at 9am to have a tracer injected for the sentinel lymph node biopsy portion of my surgery. I will then go home and don't have to check in for surgery until 11am. We expect I will go into surgery around noon where they will remove my tumor then check to see which lymph nodes the earlier injected tracer are showing up in and remove those. We are anticipating the surgery to take about an hour to an hour and half and I will hopefully be ready to go home by 2:30/3:00pm. Feeling relieved to soon have this tumor out of my body!
I continue to me amazed by what an incredible community of people I have in my life. I stand firmly grounded by the fact that I have been shown so much love and I know I can do this because of all the support, prayers, and good vibes! Thank you all I am humbled.